Forum Announcements & Updates

A few more categories have been added, recently. This is so I can amalgamate several old NYK projects with the recent ones and then incorporate any new ones. These new forums allow everything to be kept in the same place, making it far easier from an administrative point of view to maintain. Let's just hope that the lovely people who are providing this platfor free of charge don't ever decide to give up the business of providing such worthwhile services.

To help pay for the services provided, check out a few of the recommended links now and again. They should, by the looks of things, correspond with whatever topics are being discussed.

Many thanks for taking part here. Further explanations will be posted here soon.

Frugaldom

Photographs in posts

I'm now looking into the possibility of allowing photo uploads but the coding looks a little complicated to me. Bit worried that if I mess that up then I'll mess up the whole forum!

Can everyone see the link at the bottom of the pages named 'Gallery'? Best making sure it's not just showing in my admin settings before going and messing about with it. If someone can let me know, I'd really appreciate it.

Today we are playing in code editor mode, it's really rather fun. I'll try my best not to overwrite anything or wreck the forum but there should now be a link at the bottom of the main 'post reply' box that offers the choice to 'Attach File'. With luck, this should allow a few photos to be uploaded but PLEASE keep your photo file sizes fairly small.
OK, here goes...

Yeah! It works, thank you kind forum owners, my donation will be with you soon!

Frugaldom

Another update - at the top of every page, there is now a link back to the main website.

Tad16

You are just sooooo clever - had to try it for myself!

Click to see full size image

Frugaldom

EXCELLENT! I always think it's nice to be able to upload photos. There isn't an awful lot of space but it's much handier and far less time consuming than having to upload elsewhere and then link back to them.

User status now added beneath name & avatar (if you have one). Lets you see instantly if user is online or offline.

Frugaldom

A new section has been introduced to the forums for 'Microholding'. Aimed at those of us who are attempting the good life on a miniscule scale.

Frugaldom

To uncomplicate the daily news forum, I've introduced a new monthly thread from 1st July 2010. Next year, it will be easy to check back over previous months to compare progress and growing times etc, plus it will be easier to keep up with what's happening where, when and with whom. Hope it works out better this way.

Frugaldom

Updated the Frugal Handy Links section to incorporate inspirational ideas about Frugal Living along with links to favourite blogs etc.

Introduced a Frugaldom Fun section and incorporated the reintroduction of the Big Bad Bunny

Updated the links section for all our budding writers who seem afraid to post on this new site

Spent far too much time posting on here and not enough time actually 'doing' stuff elsewhere.

Frugaldom

A few more links added to 'Handy Links' section and another button added to the top of the main forum, linking to the Frugaldom blog.

Frugaldom

Membership pruning will be taking place this week, meaning that all usernames that have not visited or posted for the past 2 months will be automatically deleted. Old posts should remain in place.

Frugaldom

More membership pruning - all dormant accounts have been deleted and will continue to be deleted to ensure that only serious followers of Frugaldom have access to these forums.

Any usernames that don't log in for a period of 2 months will be deleted from the forum. You can easily renew your free membership by resubmitting your details.

Please keep your user details up to date with current email addresses and fel free to include your website or blog address. However, NYK Media reserves the right to remove any posts or links deemed to be unsuitable.

Edit - In addition to the above, several categories that have not been used have now been deleted.

It's a case of use it or lose it when using free webspace, I'm afraid.

Frugaldom

Apologies for any interference that may have been caused while I was reorganising the forums.

Certain categories have now been merged within sub-categories in the hope of making topics easier to find.

All challenges will now be listed in the same place

All garden related topics will be listed in the same place

All pets, poultry and livestock related topics are in the same place, each with its own sub category

Household and home-related topics are now all in the same place

Please let me know if this is any easier or if it is causing any confusion. Here to help, feel free to have your say.

Frugaldom

Apologies for any interuptions caused by the latest updates. These all need to be completed before the launch of the new challenges for 2012.

With so many different topics being introduced, previously merged topics have, once again, been split and will contain links to the relevant sections.

Frugaldom is expanding all the time in the hope that we can help provide a friendly and helpful meeting place for many more people in the future.

Your patience during these updates is much appreciated.

Frugaldom

Including photographs in posts

Screens and reading devices are becoming smaller and smaller nowadays, what with all the iphone users and iPad type devices accessing online material.

This forum is available for mobile reading devices, as a few of the members use only their mobile devices for accessing it. For that reason, I will now be deleting any posts containing photographs or urls that pull the posts off screen.

I know some of you have had a few problems in this department, so if any of your posts disappear, they can be reposted in the correct format, using smaller image files.

I'd also like to see subect headings in the posts. Even I am bad for addig a quick reply and failing to include subect title, but this interferes with the simple search facility, as it has no subject heading to search.

The forum settings will be changed accordingly to reflect all of the above improvements.

Frugaldom

Updates for final quarter of 2012

As you'll can see, the membership number for the forum has fallen dramatically. This is owing to all the dormant accounts being deleted, along with a handful of spammers that had found their way on here.

Jaibee

Shame you have had to change it, but hopefully it will result in less work for you. What a shame that people always have to spoil things - and how disgusting that some are paid to spam sites like this.

Frugaldom

Jaibee, I only know about the being paid to do it from my experience of being offered the jobs of doing it when applying for freelance blogging jobs. I got caught out once and was fortunate enought hat the 'client' had other contracts I could switch to (after some debate). Needless to say, I have done no work for said client since then.

Frugaldom

Can't do anything about the ads or pop-ups if they appear because this is a free service, not part of my own website. Only way I can stop them is to upgrade to premium and I'm not prepared to pay it. Not just yet, anyway.

Frugaldom

Couple of small updates to the forum but nothing that should interupt the service in any way. A quick change of the header photo and an update to the title and intro, as there seems to be a little bit of drifting going on in the categories, meaning there isn't much encouragement for newcomers hoping to chat about how to cut costs, rescue themselves from debt and frugalise their budgets.

General chit chat is encouraged, but not at the expense of over-riding the core reasons for us all being here.

Duchess of Frugonia

Hear, hear.

It's why I came and continue to come here, Nyk. Not only is this a friendly and supportive place but I feel safe discussing difficult issue openly with the people on here. Not everyone is happy spreading the news that they're frugal, whether they "need" or "want" to be, so keeping it secure is much appreciated. If a slide into just general chat and a diary updating place took precedence over the actual business of frugality and how to stay cheerful and on track it would be a dreadful loss to many of us.

Frugaldom

Thank for the comments and reassurance that the forum is as it should be - frugal fun.

Frugaldom

More updates going on, some within my control. others not. Owing to the number of devices currently available for accessing the Internet, these free forums are open to any member of the public and are regularly indexed by the search engines. Owing to the nature of some of the current changes, please keep in mind that all free forums are public. If you want to share blog links, please add them to the relevant section. If you are adding affiliate links, please state that's what it is - it seems some companies are being penalised by the major search engines, as these links are being thrown out by the likes of Google as they are now considered spam of some sort.

Hopefully, there should be no interruption to service while I make the relevant changes but apologies in advance to any changes that might affect those on a certain page when its being updated.

Frugaldom

Updates

Recently, I discovered many updates had taken place via Windows auto updates and the like, so control of online safety is now completely out of my hands.

Security wise, I have set these forums in a way that allows only registered users to post or respond and this is to try to prevent spammers, scammers and trolls spoiling things. However, the topics and posts are available to the general public and there's also a new (to me) option on Windows Live that allows anyone, anywhere to post out a link to any page and it automatically uploads onto their own blog, site or page.

I have absolutely no control over how people use websites, what they share or how they share it, so please keep this in mind when posting here - it is not guaranteed to stay here and the search engine spiders are getting everywhere. (Having just checked, I now see that all the old MSE threads are still available and fully visible to the public, registered or otherwise.)

Just realised that I'd never got around to splitting off the DIY section for recycling, upcycling, making do and mending plus all those other household jobs we try to do for ourselves - sorry about that - attending to it now.

Frugaldom

Out with the old

Technology is progressing too quickly for me to keep up with it so some more changes have been implemented here on the forums.

First of all, I seem to have absolutely no overall control of security here other than making the forums a 'members only' place to post. Previously, I locked off the Daily Thread, so it still remains private and shouldn't get spidered by search engines, but I cannot guarantee the security of that. I've now renamed the private daily chat thread 'Daily Chat - Members Only'.

Signatures have been disabled to try and prevent redirecting traffic off the forums to third party advertisers, linked here by spammers and chancers who choose to join. There is still an option to include a web address, so feel free to add your blog address in there, instead.

We have a separate forum called 'Blogging and Writing' - please use this for inviting people to read your blogs, rather than include these links in the main forums. We have run a list of blogs from there for a long time and offered reciprocal links to all - very few reciprocated so I am no longer offering this option. Instead, I started a thread called 'Today I am writing about...' and that's where folks were supposed to share news of what they were blogging about and where.

Other changes - many people fail to read the introductions to anything, so I have deleted the option for quick reply to ensure nobody misses the 'Attach File' link below left of their reply boxes. This is the link you click to upload a photo or other file you want to share. But please, please, please, click on the option to show it as a thumbnail if it's a huge photo, otherwise it skews the forum off page, meaning that us laptop users and those on mobile devices can't read the posts or, worse still get thrown offline because the files are too big to download over a limited Internet connection. Some folks don't have broadband and others have little to no mobile signal.

Finally - accounts on here become dormant when a user fails to log into the forum for several months. If you are a regular reader who doesn't post, but does log in to read the members' only section, your account should remain safe. To all others - log in or lose out.

And now for the main reminder of the day - don't forget that no matter how secure you may think a page is, if anyone can access it then they can screen shot it and post it out onto the world wide web. The free Windows Live 'Blog This' feature has astounded me, I'll feature an example of how that works later today. And please note that I have no control over Microsoft, although it would be nice to have a few shares in the company when the going is good.

Shaz_mum_of_2

Thanks for the update, the virtual world is changing at a scary pace isn't it. Had an interesting conversation with some teenagers last week .....the can't believe that things such as black and white TV's and videos ever existed. They lso found it strange that until 20yrs ago my nanna never had a phone in the house ....they all have at least one in their pocket!

Thanks for monitoring all the updates etc, the reality is we all have to be really careful how much information we divulge online

Frugaldom

Search before starting a new thread

Can I also suggest readers use the 'search' facility before starting new threads, as I am unable to combine threads into the one forum.

'Search' can be located at the top of the page above the big greet link buttons, it's in between the FAQ and Memberlist link. You can try it out to see what it looks like here -> http://frugaldom.myfreeforum.org/search.php

============

Shaz, we're a little behind the times here in our forgotten corner of the country, I still know people without phones (my daughter, for one) and I still have a video and a cassette player. In fact, I still have my ancient hand-turning sewing machine that came via my Great Aunt, gran and then mum. How modern am I to have all of those things and Internet?

Shaz_mum_of_2

my lot think I am old because I remember floppy disks ...there's no hope for us oldies

Frugaldom

Floppy discs and experiments

Yep, I still have some of those, too - looking for a way of accessing them to transfer the photos to CD and hoping H can find his floppy drive to set up the old Mac! First computer at work for me, and at college, come to think of it, had 5.5" cardboard looking floppy discs that actually were floppy! But the computer took up half the office!

===========

Back to my experiment - here's the screen shot composed from the daily members only thread, apologies for file size...

And now I am going to hit the 'magic' button that's kindly been provided by Windows Live - called 'Blog This'.

Frugaldom

Results of experiment

The results of this simple experiment can be found in the members only Daily Chat.

Frugaldom

Inactive accounts

The latest deletions have been made in the inactive accounts. An inactive account is deemed to be one opened but never activated, confirmed or completed by way of providing the necessary information.

Frugaldom

Winter Updates

We've had a few spammy links appearing again after sections of the forums began showing up in Google searches again, so I have resolved the problem by making the entire forum a members only area. It means you'll need to log in to read and/or post, although the main titles will still be visible.

That's it, a new start for 2014 as an exclusive, members' only forum for followers of the frugal lifestyle. It's free to join, so I can't see this creating a problem.

Frugaldom

Clearing Wasted Space

Please note that I am deleting all old threads that were started and then abandoned by those who began with the intentions of taking part in the various challenges and then quit updating.

If you started a thread and haven't posted in it for over 3 months, your thread will be deleted.

Completed challenge threads will be archived.

Frugaldom

Now Renewed

Apologies for the loss of NYK's Frugaldom page on Facebook - the page has now been replaced in readiness for 2014, our 15th anniversary year!

If you have a Facebook account, don't forget to like and share so we can help many more people enjoy making the most from their finances.

Frugal living can be fun!

Frugaldom

Forum Downtime

Apologies for any interruptions experienced during Friday 28th Feb 2014.

Also, I have just re-enabled members' profile signatures. To update yours, use he 'Profile' link at the top of any page and scroll down the section that says 'Signature'.

Frugaldom

MAJOR CHANGES

The website www.frugalforums.co.uk now points to the brand new forums that I am in the process of building. They can be accessed at the moment but I have only just started setting up the categories. In the meantime, I have opened the 'daily chat' section to enable you to register over there. I have taken the plunge and paid to have the facility set up on my own site rather than risk relying on free services.

Hopefully, the transition won't take too long, as I'd like it fully functional in time for our April 2014 challenge.